by Anne Perry
He strained his eyes to see. Then suddenly there it was, a wick of light, growing, a yellow flame, bigger and bigger. Then another, closer to him, tiny at first but swelling, billowing in the darkness.
He slipped the oars and grasped for the tinder, taking a moment to find it in the darkness at the bottom of the boat. Then he had it. He fumbled for the torch, found the first one, then the second, and a third for safety. The tinder refused to ignite. He was drifting toward the warship, the sea taking him faster and faster. His fingers were clumsy. He must steady himself. He had one chance!
Then the tinder caught and the spark lit the torch. It flared up. He touched it to the second. They burned hard and hot. He hurled the first one into the boat of oil and pitch. The flame took a moment, then roared up. He lit the third torch from the second and threw them both also. The flames were high and hot already. He must cut the rope or it would take him with it. Away to the west, the flames were mounting as the fireboats caught the seaward vessels.
The rope was thick and wet. It seemed to take forever to saw through it. Why hadn’t he brought a sharper blade? Patience! At last it was cut through and fell into the sea. He sat back on the thwart and grasped the oars, throwing his weight into pulling, one stroke and then two, three. He was too close to the warships. He could hear men shouting, panic in their voices. To the west, the flames were hard and bright. The first ship was ablaze, fire up to its masts, leaping high.
He pulled as hard as he could, digging the oars deep. He must pull evenly. Tear a muscle now and he would burn with them. He must get away, then back to shore. Were Giuseppe and Stefano all right? Had they the strength to make shore? He should have told Giuseppe, out in the middle of the bay, to make for the farther shore, not try to beat against the wind back to the east.
No, that was stupid; he wouldn’t have to be told!
The light was growing stronger as the ship in the middle of the bay burned more strongly. The canvas of the furled sails was on fire. Then the Greek fire in the hold exploded, white hot, like the heart of a furnace. Pieces of flaming debris were sent high into the air. Giuliano leaned on the oars and caught his breath for a moment as a streamer of flame shot into the sky and landed on another ship, catching immediately on the dry wood. Other pieces fell into the sea. He stared at the beauty and horror as one ship after another burned until the whole bay was an inferno like the floor of some visionary hell.
Another ship with Greek fire exploded, sending debris soaring into the air. The roar of it was deafening, and the heat seared Giuliano’s skin even as far away as he was.
A blazing plank of wood splashed into the water only a few feet from him. Galvanized into action, he grasped the oars and threw his body against the weight of them, sending the boat hurtling forward.
Fifteen minutes later, he reached the eastern shore a hundred feet from where he had set out and stood to watch as one of the warships listed and dropped lower in the water.
By morning, there would be little left of Charles’s fleet. The fact that Giuliano, a Venetian, had lit the fire that destroyed it was perhaps some small measure of redemption for Venice from its ravage of Byzantium seventy years ago.
He turned slowly and made his way toward the town. He could see his way quite clearly in the light of the flames. They roared up into the sky, casting a glare over the drifting wreckage, the water of the bay now showing brazen between the jagged black skeletons of the ruined ships. It lit the fronts of the houses red and yellow, and as Giuliano came closer to the buildings, he could see their windows, brilliant panes of flat gold in the darker stones.
People were crowding out to watch in amazement and horror at the sight. Some clung to each other as each new explosion filled the air with sound and fury. Others stood paralyzed, unbelieving.
Giuliano increased his pace, striding out. Giuseppe and Stefano would go back into the hills, up toward Etna, where the servants of Charles’s men would never find them, but he needed to go to Byzantium. He must carry the news.
The massive buttresses of Mategriffon towered above him, men on the battlements staring into the inferno on the sea, their faces lit like effigies of copper. Giuliano looked up and for a moment saw Charles himself, his features twisted with rage and the dawning understanding of what had happened to the precious dreams of his lifetime.
For an instant he looked down, perhaps saw something familiar in Giuliano’s stride or the dark outline of his figure as he passed a wall, pale in the reflected light. Charles stiffened with recognition.
Giuliano lifted his arm in a salute. In spite of his weariness and the ache in his body, he quickened his pace. He must be gone before archers could be summoned or soldiers called to hunt him down.
Ninety-six
ZOE WAS DEAD, AND AFTER THE DEATHS OF CONSTANTINE and Palombara, Anna felt a new constriction and grief even tighter inside her. The fear in the city increased as people waited for more immediate news of the invasion. Rumors spread like brushfire, leaping from street to street, growing more distorted with each new telling.
People hoarded food, weapons; those near the walls stored pitch to light and pour on the enemy when they came. Every day more people left, a constant bleeding away of those who had the means to travel and somewhere to go. As always, the poor, the old, and the sick remained.
Fishermen still went out, but they stayed close to the shore and were in by nightfall, boats moored or pulled up the beach, guards on watch against theft.
Anna still treated the sick and found among them more injuries due to the clumsiness of fear and carelessness because muscles were clenched, attention divided, people sleepless with the constant watching and listening for news of disaster.
She could give some relief for the physical distress, but the reality of what lay ahead she could not treat. It was only by being constantly concerned with the small duties she could perform that she could ignore the greater truths.
There were few she cared for personally now. Nicephoras would stay as long as the emperor did. For them to run away was unthinkable. She spoke also to Leo.
“When the crusader fleet arrives, it will be too late,” she said quietly to Leo one evening after a supper of fish and vegetables. “We have done all we could for Justinian. I can look after myself. I will feel better if I know you are safe.”
Leo put down his fork and looked at her with eyes filled with reproof. “Is that what you expect of me?” he asked.
She looked down at her plate. “I care about you, Leo. I want you to be safe. I shall feel a terrible guilt if you suffer because I have brought you here.”
“I came willingly,” he told her.
She looked up, meeting his eyes. “All right, then I shall feel a bitter grief if something happens to you!”
“And Simonis?” he asked quietly. She still came two or three times a week, but she chose times when Anna was out. It was almost as if she watched the street and waited for the opportunity.
In his face, Anna saw compassion and anxiety and felt ashamed that she had not thought of his loneliness before now. He and Simonis had lived and worked in the same house all their adult lives. They had differed over many things, and he deplored what she had said to Anna over Justinian. He had always thought her favoring of Justinian was wrong but owned that his of Anna was just as much at fault. Leo must miss Simonis, even the familiarity of their quarrels. More than that, he was now afraid for her.
“I’m sorry,” Anna said quietly. “If there is an invasion… when… she should be with us. Please ask her if she will come back…” She stopped.
“What is it?” he asked.
“Unless she is safer where she is,” Anna finished the thought.
Leo shook his head. “Safety is being with your own people. When you are old, it is better to die with your family than escape and live with strangers.”
Without warning, tears filled Anna’s eyes. “Ask her… please.”
Simonis came back three days later, nervous, defiant, determined that A
nna should speak first. Anna was startled by how much thinner she was, the bruised look in her face. It had been months, but she seemed weary, as if her joints were stiff.
Anna had planned what to say to Simonis, but now that she saw a lonely old woman who had lost everyone she loved, the prepared words vanished.
“I know it is a great deal to ask you to stay,” Anna said quietly, “and I will understand if you don’t wish to, when-”
“I’m staying,” Simonis cut across her, her black eyes fierce. “I do not desert because a battle is coming.”
“It’s not a battle,” Anna pointed out. “It’s death.”
Simonis shrugged. “Well, I wasn’t going to live forever anyway.” Her voice trembled a little, and that was the end of the conversation.
Anna took a brief respite from attending the sick to go again to the Hagia Sophia, not so much for the Mass as to look at the unique beauty of it while it was still there.
As she walked through its outer aisles and saw the gold of the mosaics, the exquisite, brooding, sloe-eyed Madonnas and somber figures of Christ and his Apostles, she thought of Zoe and was touched by grief far deeper than she would have expected. Byzantium was less without her. Life was grayer.
“Can’t make up your mind whether to be on the floor of the men or the women, Anastasius?”
She swung around and saw Helena standing a few feet away. She was magnificently dressed in a dark red tunic and a dalmatica of such a rich blue as to be almost purple, or as close as anyone dared come who was not of the imperial house. The gold borders on it and the reflection of the red made one look a second time to be certain.
Anna wanted to answer with some cutting reply, but all such thought was crowded out of her mind by the sight of a man behind Helena. Anna knew his face, although she had not seen him in at least two years. It was Esaias, the only other man, apart from Demetrios, who had survived the assassination plot unscathed.
Why was he here in the Hagia Sophia with Helena, and she dressed almost in purple? Helena Comnena, Zoe’s daughter to the emperor. She had not married Demetrios. If all she wanted of him was his imperial name, there was no point now. In a matter of weeks, the throne would be in the hands of Charles of Anjou, to give to whomever he wished-some puppet who would rule it at his behest.
Nicephoras had assumed it would be Charles’s son-in-law, but perhaps it would not! Could he have something different in mind, something to curb an ambitious daughter, reward a more trustworthy lieutenant, and at the same time buy from a troublesome people a degree of peace with a turncoat Palaeologus queen? What an exquisite betrayal!
She must not let Helena see the thought in her eyes. She must say something quickly, not a polite reply, which Helena would know was masking another truth.
“I was thinking of your mother,” Anna said, smiling slightly. “Watching Giuliano Dandolo clean the tomb of his great-grandfather. That was the one vengeance she didn’t achieve.”
Helena’s expression froze. “That was all a waste of time,” she said coldly. “An old woman living in the past. I live for the future, but then I have one. She hadn’t. What about you, Anastasia-is that your name?”
“No.”
Helena shrugged. “Well, no matter-whatever it is, you have no place here anymore. I don’t know what delusion ever brought you in the first place.”
Anna would have been stung had not her thoughts been racing as to what Esaias was doing with Helena. She remembered his part in the original plot. It was he who had courted the young Andronicus, with the intent of murdering him also.
If she was planning an alliance of some sort with Charles of Anjou, then was Esaias the one who carried word back and forth? Helena would never be fool enough to commit anything damning to paper. Nor would she travel herself. And she would not have trusted any of Zoe’s men.
Helena was waiting for a response.
“It’s over now anyway,” Anna said quietly. She knew Justinian was guilty of Bessarion’s death, in an act of loyalty to Byzantium, and in a few weeks, even days, it would no longer matter anymore.
Helena lifted her head a little higher and walked away. In dark, glowing reds, Esaias followed after her.
Anna walked slowly into one of the small side chapels and bent her head in thought close to prayer.
She lifted her eyes to the somber face of the Madonna above her, surrounded in a million tiny bricks of gold: If she could tell Michael something he did not know, something he believed still mattered, she might persuade him to pardon Justinian. A letter from the emperor could still be law with the monks of Sinai.
How much proof would it take for Michael to believe? In this darkening time, might he be more willing than before to perform one last act of clemency? Perhaps she might yet succeed.
She closed her eyes. Mary, Mother of God, forgive me for giving up too soon. Please. Perhaps you can’t save the city. We should have saved ourselves. But help me free Justinian… please?
She looked up at the strong, beautiful face. “I don’t know whether we deserve your help, maybe we don’t, but we need it.” Then she swiveled around and walked quickly and silently after Helena, so she could follow Esaias when the Mass was over. She needed to know everything about him that she could.
She told Leo and Simonis because she needed their help.
“What do you want me to do?” he asked, puzzled.
They were sitting over an early supper.
“I need to know if he’s traveled,” she replied. “I can’t prove where to, but I can gain some idea if I can find out which ships he sailed on-”
“I’ll find out when,” Simonis interrupted.
They both turned to her in surprise.
“Servants know,” she said impatiently. “For heaven’s sake, isn’t it obvious enough? Food, supplies, packing clothes, maybe closing off part of the house! He might have brought treasures for himself, for his house, new clothes. They will know where he went, one of them will have gone with him. And they will certainly know for how long.”
Leo looked at Anna. “And when we know, what are you going to do?” he asked grimly, his face shadowed, eyes filled with sadness.
“Tell the emperor,” she replied.
“And he will execute Helena,” Simonis said with satisfaction.
“More likely have her murdered in private,” Leo said before turning to Anna. “But not before she has told the emperor everything she knows about you, including that you are a woman and have fooled him all these years. That you have treated him personally-very personally. You will not walk away without paying for that, perhaps with your life. Will you buy Justinian’s freedom at the cost of your own?” he asked, his voice no more than a whisper. “I am not sure if I am willing to help you do that.”
Simonis blinked, hesitated, looking first at Anna, then at Leo. “Neither am I,” she said at last.
“Don’t you want to stop Helena, if that is what she plans to do?” Anna asked. Receiving no response, she tried again. “We may be killed when the city is taken anyway. Please, find this for me.”
“You should live!” Simonis said angrily, the tears running down her face. “You’re a physician. Think of all the trouble your father took to teach you.”
“Find out, or I’ll have to,” Anna said. “And you would be better at it than I would.”
“Are you ordering me to?” Simonis responded.
“Would that make any difference? Because if it would, then yes, I am.”
Simonis said nothing, but Anna knew she would do it, and do it with courage and dedication. “Thank you,” she said with a smile.
Simonis stood up and stalked out of the room.
It was a few days later that enough information was pieced together for Anna to be certain that Esaias had traveled to Palermo and to Naples on Helena’s behalf, and that Helena at least believed that she had a promise from the king of the Two Sicilies for her to rule Byzantium, as consort of the puppet emperor he would place on the throne. Her Comnenos and Palae
ologus heritage would legitimize the succession in the eyes of the people. She would be empress-a feat Zoe could never have achieved.
Anna went to the Blachernae Palace to speak to Nicephoras. She would do it straightaway, before she lost her nerve, before she allowed Leo or Simonis to dissuade her.
She climbed the steps and went in through the huge entrance, acknowledged by the Varangian Guard, who knew her well. How many more times would she do this? Could it even be the last, this evening, as the dusk settled purple over Asia and the last light flickered on the waters of the Bosphorus?
She asked to see Nicephoras, telling his servant that it was urgent.
He was used to her calls and did not question her. Ten minutes later, she was alone with Nicephoras in his room. It looked exactly as it had the first time she was here. Only Nicephoras himself was changed. He looked tired and much older. There were hollows around his eyes and blue veins in his hands.
“Have you come to say good-bye?” he asked, making no attempt to smile. “You have no need to stay, you know. I will remain with the emperor. The injuries we are about to receive cannot be healed, except by God. I would like to think you are safe. That would be a gift you could give me.”
“Perhaps this will be good-bye.” She found this meeting harder than she had been prepared for. Her voice wavered, and she mastered it only with difficulty. “But that is not what I came for. I came because I have news of Helena Comnena which you should know.”
He gave a slight shrug. “Does it matter now?”
“Yes. I have proof that she has been in communication with Charles of Anjou, to make an agreement with him.”
Nicephoras was startled. “What could she possibly offer him?”
“A kind of legitimacy. A Palaeologa wife for whatever puppet he puts on the throne of Byzantium.”
“None of Michael’s daughters would betray him by doing such a thing,” Nicephorus replied instantly.
“Not a legitimate daughter-illegitimate.”
His eyes widened with incredulity, then dawning horror. “Are you sure?” he breathed.